Why I Might Seem at Times to Prefer Bigger and/or More Powerful Government

The obviously needful advance disclaimer: I DO NOT.

In fact, given my druthers I would do away with the state entirely and would press Murray Rothbard's Magic Button right now if it appeared in front of me.

Within the existing state system and in terms of practical politics, I will support any policy move that I regard as genuinely "in the right direction" -- that is, any measure that I believe reduces the size, scope and power of government in any area and on any issue -- without deluding myself into believing that that measure gets to the root of the problem.

And then we have cases where none of the options "on offer" in a practical sense seem to meet the "right direction" criterion. At which point I look at those options, try to pick the one that seems least awful on non-libertarian criteria, and perhaps give that option lukewarm rhetorical support versus the other options (while still calling for the abolition of the state and/or real "right direction" moves).

For example:

In comments on an earlier post on healthcare, Jim L writes "I am usually a free marketer, but we don't have that.

To which I reply (as I have similarly said elsewhere and in other formats): "What we have is a mix of left-wing socialized healthcare (about 20% on Medicare, about 20% on Medicaid, 3% enrolled in VA healthcare, etc.) and right-wing socialized healthcare (HMO/PPO/ObamaCare, etc.). I'd rather have a free market. But if we're going to have almost entirely socialized healthcare, I suspect that 'single payer' would be better. Less complex, possibly less expensive."

No, I don't endorse "single payer," or "Medicare For All," or any of that nonsense. But if someone handed me a magic button and the only function it served was to let me choose between the existing system and "single payer," I'd probably go with "single payer."

To explain why, let me butcher and repurpose a quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"As a nation, we began by declaring that 'healthcare is something the market provides.' Over time we came to practically read it 'healthcare is something the market provides except for the elderly, and the poor, and veterans, and whenever the AMA monopoly doesn't like the market.' Increasingly more so over the last 45 years, we now read it 'healthcare is something the market provides except for the elderly, and the poor, and veterans, whenever the AMA monopoly doesn't like the market, and when Big Pharma and Big Insurance can lobby to have us all forced into its HMO/PPO schemes via e.g. tax policy.' I should prefer we make no pretense of loving the market and take our socialism pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."